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With a Tuesday election looming, voters in Boston are beginning to make choices among an egg-carton worth of choices for mayor: a dozen candidates are running in the first open election since 1983.

One fifth of voters remain undecided ahead of the Sept. 24 preliminary election, but a WBUR/MassInc poll released Thursday shows John Connolly, a city councilman, has 15% support and state Rep. Marty Walsh has 12%. In third place with 10% is former city housing chief Charlotte Golar Richie, who would be Boston's first female mayor. The remainder of the field has 8% or less.

Voters are more certain about their top issues in the race: 24% say education is the most important issue facing the next mayor, followed by crime at 22%.

The top two finishers go on to the Nov. 5 election to succeed Mayor Tom Menino, who won five terms after being appointed in 1993.

The field includes five African-American and one Hispanic candidate – entirely appropriate for a city far more diverse than when Menino took office, says Lawrence DiCara, a former city councilman and longtime political analyst.

"Today Boston is less Catholic, less Irish, less labor, less culturally conservative,'' he says. "It's a bike friendly, gay friendly, multiracial, family-friendly city.''

Paul Scapicchio, a former councilman turned lobbyist, says he's not surprised by the size of the field. "Boston is not a huge city demographically or geographically, but it has an outsized profile, nationally or internationally,'' says Scapicchio, who has endorsed Connolly. When presidential primaries come around, the top job in Boston carries weight even though deep-blue Massachusetts is hardly a swing state. "The only person who can send 500 people to campaign in New Hampshire is the mayor of Boston,'' Scapicchio says. "You are able to wield an awful lot of authority and get a lot done.''